Biodiversity

"With its gleaming red, blue and green feathers, the painted bunting is often described as the most beautiful migratory songbird in North America. After a 30 year decline and extirpation from parts of its U.S. range, the species appears to be recovering."

"One of the great mysteries about North America is what killed off woolly mammoths and other exotic animals that roamed the land after the last ice age. Ideas have ranged from a comet impact and climate change to human hunters. A study published Friday in Science Magazine provides new clues about this — cleverly deduced from samples of a fungus that grew on the animals' dung."

"Japanese whaling ships left port Thursday for Antarctic waters for their annual hunt of the ocean giants, Greenpeace said, setting the stage for high-seas confrontations with anti-whaling activists."

Discovery of a fungus associated with "White Nose Syndrome," which is killing millions of bats in the easter US, is just the beginning of an unravelling mystery, a Boston University bat biologist says.
 

"MÉRIDA, Mexico -- Connectivity is a message reverberating in multiple work sessions as the week-long 9th World Wilderness Congress concludes. A new declaration, The Message of Mérida, demands that the UN climate conference next month make the connection between climate and wilderness and 'recognize that it is necessary to address both the climate change and biodiversity extinction crises.'"

"The brown pelican, listed as an endangered species even before the 1973 U.S. Endangered Species Act existed, is officially back from the brink of extinction, the Interior Department said on Wednesday."

"The Ninth World Wilderness Congress in Mérida, Yucatán, [is] an event that draws together top conservation officials and activists from across the globe to tackle trans-national wilderness issues."

"Australia's koalas could be extinct in 30 years, conservationists warned Tuesday, calling for the iconic creatures to be declared an endangered species."

"Great Whites may be loners, but the ocean's most feared predators also hang out together between Mexico and Hawaii at a deep sea watering hole known as the 'White Shark Cafe,' a study released Wednesday reveals."

"Protection for polar bears' shrinking icy habitat is the subject of a proposed rule sent to the White House by the Interior Department."